Page:Moonfleet - John Meade Falkner.pdf/214

 eyes for the second time that day, and something in them made me stop. There was a look in his face that brought back to me the memory of an autumn evening, when I sat in my aunt's parlour reading the book called the "Arabian Nights;" and how, in the story of the Wonderful Lamp, Aladdin's wicked uncle stands at the top of the stairs when the boy is coming up out of the underground cavern, and will not let him out unless he first gives up the treasure. But Aladdin refused to give up his lamp until he should stand safe on the ground again, because he guessed that if he did, his uncle would shut him up in the cavern and leave him to die there; and the look in the turnkey's eyes made me refuse to hand him the jewel till I was safe out of the well, for a horrible fear seized me that as soon as he had taken it from me he meant to let me fall down and drown below.

So when he reached down his hand and said, "Give me the treasure," I answered, "Pull me up then; I cannot show it you in the bucket."

"Nay, lad," he said, cozening me, tis safer to give it me now, and have both hands free to help you getting out; these stones are wet and greasy, and you may chance to slip, and having no hand to save you, fall back in the well."

But I was not to be cheated, and said again sturdily, "No, you must pull me up first."

Then he took to scowling, and cried in an angry tone, "Give me the treasure, I say, or it will be the worse for you." But Elzevir would not let him speak to me that way, and broke in roughly, "Let the boy up, he is sure-footed and will not slip. 'Tis his treasure, and